UK prime minister’s departure ‘inevitable’, says Tory loyalist
LONDON: Boris Johnson’s removal from office by party members is “inevitable”, a prominent member of the British prime minister’s Conservative party told the Observer, even as some Johnson backers stepped up to defend him.
“It is going to end in him going, so I just want him to have some agency in that,” Charles Walker told the Sunday newspaper in an interview.
Walker is a former vice-chairman of the party’s influential 1922 Committee.
Johnson is facing a growing Tory rebellion over reports of parties in Downing Street during lockdown as members of parliament submit confidential letters to the committee calling for his removal as party leader. If the total reaches 54 - or 15% of the party’s MPs - it will trigger a no-confidence vote in the premier.
The Sunday Times said Johnson is preparing for a vote as soon as this week, with his advisers estimating the current total stands between 35 and 45, and others predicting more than 50.
Johnson has told allies he is determined to cling to power, according to the Sunday Times. The paper quotes an unidentified senior adviser as saying, “They’ll have to send a Panzer division to get him out of there.”
UK business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Sunday pushed back on the suggestion that Chancellor Rishi Sunak was “distancing himself” from Johnson. “We’re working together,” Kwarteng said of Sunak. “We’re 100% behind the prime minister.”
Sunak admits attending lockdown party in 2020
UK’s Indian-origin Chancellor Rishi Sunak has admitted to attending Johnson’s lockdown birthday party in 2020 but refused to say what happened when he entered the room and claimed that he was there for a meeting to discuss the Covid-19 situation.
His comments came after Johnson’s five aides, including longstanding policy chief Munira Mirza, chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, principal private secretary Martin Reynolds and communications director Jack Doyle, resigned from their posts within hours of each other on Thursday.
They stepped down after a damning investigation revealed that multiple parties took place at Downing Street while the rest of the United Kingdom was living under strict Covid-19 lockdown rules.